I'm curious what specific chatbots they used, a companion chatbot is quite different than say chatgpt. And I imagine the former is what children will anthropomorphize, my understand is chatgpt/gemini/the standard is more "do my homework" services. I am curious if the same mechanisms they found with children are the same or at least on the same thread line with the adults who found companions or attachment with certain models (like the gpt 4o saga).
Anthropomorphism in Children's Interactions with LLM Chatbots
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Re: Anthropomorphism in Children's Interactions with LLM Chatbots
#12Why allow anthropomorphism in LLM or any computer output, for any age group? A simple regulation would be that all LLM output must: * Explicitly identify itself as a computer * Identify the human or human org controlling it (e.g., 'This is Claude v8.90 software made by Anthropic.') * Not attempt to mimic humans except for entertainment purposes, and then clearly labeled (e.g., 'This is not a human. It is a computer p…
This sounds like the kind of well-intentioned thinking that results in products that are no safer practically but are far more unpleasant to interact with. This is like the pop up every time I start my car that reminds me I should not play with the screen while I’m driving.
Re: Anthropomorphism in Children's Interactions with LLM Chatbots
#13Why allow anthropomorphism in LLM or any computer output, for any age group? A simple regulation would be that all LLM output must: * Explicitly identify itself as a computer * Identify the human or human org controlling it (e.g., 'This is Claude v8.90 software made by Anthropic.') * Not attempt to mimic humans except for entertainment purposes, and then clearly labeled (e.g., 'This is not a human. It is a computer p…
Isn't this about children attributing human characteristics onto the LLM, rather than the LLM itself pretending to be human?
And we do this with lots of things that are not human for children (e.g. Bluey and Peppa Pig). Do we need a "this is not a human" warning for them, too?
Re: Anthropomorphism in Children's Interactions with LLM Chatbots
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because it makes the product mostly useless for all kinds of things?
I don't need a computer to mimic a human. AT ALL As a matter of fact, for the line of work I do (programming, devops, the works) being conscious about the fact that I am just getting an algorithm outputting text that is probabilistically related to the input I gave it would actually be healthy for me and my mental state. I HATE having to say "you" when working with an LLM.
I have the same urge - third-person the LLM is an it, for sure, but I'm not aware of a suitable second-person construction for talking to things. Maybe we need to invent one.
Re: Anthropomorphism in Children's Interactions with LLM Chatbots
#15I'm curious what specific chatbots they used, a companion chatbot is quite different than say chatgpt. And I imagine the former is what children will anthropomorphize, my understand is chatgpt/gemini/the standard is more "do my homework" services. I am curious if the same mechanisms they found with children are the same or at least on the same thread line with the adults who found companions or attachment with certai…
In section 4.2 they have a figure with the models that each of the studies used that they analyzed. Overwhelmingly (28/36) it was a GPT model. Top 4 use cases for the apps were self-directed information seeking, co-authoring stories with AI, teaching science through dialogue, and eliciting children's emotional expression.
Re: Anthropomorphism in Children's Interactions with LLM Chatbots
#16Why allow anthropomorphism in LLM or any computer output, for any age group? A simple regulation would be that all LLM output must: * Explicitly identify itself as a computer * Identify the human or human org controlling it (e.g., 'This is Claude v8.90 software made by Anthropic.') * Not attempt to mimic humans except for entertainment purposes, and then clearly labeled (e.g., 'This is not a human. It is a computer p…
Isn't this about children attributing human characteristics onto the LLM, rather than the LLM itself pretending to be human? And we do this with lots of things that are not human for children (e.g. Bluey and Peppa Pig). Do we need a "this is not a human" warning for them, too?
Do Bluey and Peppa Pig produce convincing human-like responses to virtually any human-generated input directed towards them?
If so, then uhh yeah we should definitely regulate that shit
Re: Anthropomorphism in Children's Interactions with LLM Chatbots
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
What things? Again, I don't see any but manipulation and fraud, but I certainly could be missing some.
Role play, which is a huge consumer of tokens. You can glance at openrouter's usage stats and see what apps tokens are going to and what the inference content was classified as. It's quite revealing.
Yeah, the costs of that use case far outweigh the benefits.
Re: Anthropomorphism in Children's Interactions with LLM Chatbots
#18Similar issues arose with automated learning companions for XR. Mismatches between a learner's mental model of the companion, and its actual capabilities and limitations, can cause so many problematic misunderstandings. So one idea, is to emphasize non-human non-social sources of behavior - to set up alternative narratives for "why did it do that?". The companion might be "Sparky, the glitching robot dog". So forgetting things, getting them wrong, spacing out, being unhelpful, confused, distracted, missing social cues, giving poor cues, etc... that's just glitchy robot dog glitching, not social signal. Maybe - speculative.
Re: Anthropomorphism in Children's Interactions with LLM Chatbots
#19When my daughter was 7yo and she talked to chatgpt, she repeatedly asked, what's your name? are you a boy or a girl? eventually she lost interest at the evasiveness of the answers, like she marked it as not fun to interact with, not a real person. It's different now, that she understands it can help with homework :D
Re: Anthropomorphism in Children's Interactions with LLM Chatbots
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
What things? Again, I don't see any but manipulation and fraud, but I certainly could be missing some.
Role play, which is a huge consumer of tokens. You can glance at openrouter's usage stats and see what apps tokens are going to and what the inference content was classified as. It's quite revealing.
Like online gambling, some things cause more harm than good.